Matthew Yglesias: Obama’s 2010 Lame Duck Tax Deal Was a Triumph, Not A Sellout …. David Corn has an interesting piece (see below) pushing back on the myth of the Obama cave-in, but I’d go further – the deal was a triumph …

….. Obama secured a deal that extended the middle class tax cuts, extended UI benefits, created a stimulative payroll tax holiday, cleared the legislative decks for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal and the passage of the New START arms control treated, and in exchange he gave up nothing of any real substance …. now he gets to play that leverage from a somewhat stronger economic and political context. It’s totally solid legislative dealmaking, and not any kind of cave-in or surrender.

David Corn (Mother Jones): ….. Obama didn’t wave the white flag in 2010. He turned a face-off over the Bush tax cuts into an opportunity to enact a second stimulus that he otherwise could not get past Senate Republicans. His failure at that time was not that he mustered insufficient mettle; he failed to convey to the world that he had ju-jitsued the GOPers.

…. no one ought to forget that Obama, a progressive in his policy preferences, remains a pragmatist. What happened two years ago is not an indication that Obama is likely to yield in the new face-off, but that he will be assessing the political dynamics in gridlocked Washington and be willing to bargain hard for a good deal with true benefits. That’s not caving in. It’s governing.

NYT: When Tea Party activists swamped town hall-style meetings about health care in the summer of 2009, President Obama’s army of campaign volunteers largely stayed away ….. now, Mr. Obama is seizing a second chance to keep his election-year supporters animated.

With lawmakers scheduled to return to work on Monday to begin intense discussions before a looming fiscal deadline, Mr. Obama’s aides are trying to harness the passions that returned him to the White House, hoping to pressure Republicans in Congress to accept tax increases on the wealthy. The president’s strategists are turning first to the millions of e-mail addresses assembled by the campaign and the White House.

Already, supporters are being asked to record YouTube videos of themselves talking about the importance of raising taxes on the rich. Aides said those videos would be shared on Facebook and Twitter and would be forwarded to centrist Democrats, as well as to mainstream Republicans, who they hope will break with their Tea Party colleagues.

Paul Krugman: These are difficult times for the deficit scolds who have dominated policy discussion for almost three years. One could almost feel sorry for them, if it weren’t for their role in diverting attention from the ongoing problem of inadequate recovery, and thereby helping to perpetuate catastrophically high unemployment.

….. the crisis they predicted keeps not happening. Far from fleeing U.S. debt, investors have continued to pile in, driving interest rates to historical lows …. the clear and present danger to the American economy isn’t that we’ll fail to reduce the deficit enough; it is, instead, that we’ll reduce the deficit too much. For that’s what the “fiscal cliff” – better described as the austerity bomb – is all about….

…. If you ask me, it’s time for Washington to stop worrying about this phantom menace – and to stop listening to the people who have been peddling this scare story in an attempt to get their way.

Warren Buffett (NYT): …. we need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that. A plain and simple rule like that will block the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and contribution-hungry legislators to keep the ultrarich paying rates well below those incurred by people with income just a tiny fraction of ours. Only a minimum tax on very high incomes will prevent the stated tax rate from being eviscerated by these warriors for the wealthy.

…. In the meantime, maybe you’ll run into someone with a terrific investment idea, who won’t go forward with it because of the tax he would owe when it succeeds. Send him my way. Let me unburden him.

Business Insider: Warren Buffett is out with a NYT op-ed calling for a minimum tax on the rich …. the part that will get the most attention is his intro, where he calls out Grover Norquist, the powerful activist who gets Republicans to “pledge” that they’ll never raise taxes.

Buffett writes that what Norquist doesn’t get is that no businessman would ever turn down a good, profitable deal due to tax rates…..

Washington Post: The White House warned Monday that the average family will pay $2,200 more in taxes next year if Congress does not freeze tax rates for the middle class, publishing a new report as part of President Obama’s campaign to extend tax cuts for most Americans while allowing taxes on the wealthiest to rise.

The White House report says Americans could dramatically pull back on spending in the crucial holiday season if they expect sharp tax hikes next year, which would cut deeply into take-home pay….

The report is part of a strategy to pressure Congress to pass legislation that would immediately extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000 a year.

The Democrat-controlled Senate has already signed off on the legislation. Now it’s up to the Republican-controlled House to decide whether it will follow.

Good morning TODville. Well, there were a bunch of people who already knew what Corn and Yglesias are talking about. In fact, if the pundits and emoprogs had come here after the great deal of 2010 was made, they would have realized that PBO got just about everything he wanted and the GOP got a single drop in the bucket.

Which shows, once again, that the TOD community is smarter than all the beltway pundits and emoprogs put together.

They think if they yell loud enough, people will believe them. I have a feeling their credibility is becoming a little threadbare and this isn’t going to help it. The fact is, most Americans know sometimes you have to give a little to get what you want. In 2010 PBO gave very little.

In fact, they were ‘yesterday’s people’ in 2010 and they really did not appreciate those of us who keep debunking their ‘cave in’ nonsense with facts, of which we had plenty to use. It was already blatantly obvious that President Obama was a master legislative force, but what he achieved between Nov 2010 and early Jan 2011 will be the topic of not just future Ph.D. Dissertations.

And, what he achieved in August of 2011 will be seen as the reason he will spend the next two years decimating the GOP :)

Btw, the WH knows the truth regarding the ‘fiscal cliff’ and they know how to leverage it, i.e., what’s at the edge of the cliff is not our economy but the GOP and at any minute all President Obama needs to do is go ‘beep beep’ and watch’um jump off :)

emoprogs’ cluelessness & political impotence = walker recall fail (especially when the state senators’ recall didn’t go as expected) + WI state house is now fully rethug even when PBO won with nearly seven points.

By Pete Kasperowicz
The Senate returns from the Thanksgiving break at 2 p.m. to resume work on S. 3525, the Sportsmen’s Act.

While supporters of the bill have said it would expand access to federal lands for hunters and fishermen at no cost, the bill does contain language appropriating $14 million in new spending. As a result, Senate Republicans have raised a budget point of order against the bill, saying that it violates spending limits set in last year’s Budget Control Act.
-//

So, because of last tears budget control act, 14 million dollars of New spending is not allowed.
Now that is unbelievable. How in the hell are we supposed to fix the economy jf we don’t make Any investments?

GM Chips and TOD family. It’s always a great start to a day when you wake up. If you don’t think so, try not waking up. lol :)

On another note, I don’t trust the repubs with their latest “Dumb Grove” scheme. I really hope that the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire as scheduled. Then first Dems bill should be a middle class tax cut. Grover, instantly becomes totally irrelevant.

I think, at that point the GOP has nothing to lose, they either do as you say for the middle class, or they go nuclear and shut the government down in March when we have to raise debt limit?
Which do you think the Republicans will do?

I’d like to see them try that nonsense of shutting down the government again and watch 2014 run away from them. I’m not afraid of the GOP and neither should you. They have no leverage and are simply rabies infected dogs barking at crap.

How did trying to shut down the government in 2010 over Planned Parenthood funding work for them? Yeah…..ask them in 2012 how they really feel about that stupid self inflicted wound.

Totally agree, UT. Americans would lay the full blame for a shut down on the GOP and it would not be pretty for them. My favorite line..They are “simply rabies infected dogs barking at crap.” A truer description of the GOP-led Congress has never been written.

It’s true you still have that teabagger wing of the repubs in the house, however, I don’t believe that the rest of the repubs in the house would go along, thus partnering with the Dems to prevent a government shut down as well a debt limit debacle.

Wish more emoprogs and so called progressives would read David Corn’s and Matthew Yglesias’s article about 2010 and what really went down. The deals Pres. Obama was able to secure for the middle-class, for LGBT people in the military, for America and the world in terms of the New START Treaty, child nutrition bill, payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, etc. were a class in political chess brilliance. He didn’t even have to give up anything of substance. Okay, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy weren’t repealed but the middle-class benefited so much more and the economy went on to improve because Pres. Obama got another round of stimulus injected into the economy without ever once having to say the so called dreaded word “stimulus.” We’re now at 7.9% unemployment. A huge drop from the 10% we once were stuck at.

Additionally, we need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that. A plain and simple rule like that will block the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and contribution-hungry legislators to keep the ultrarich paying rates well below those incurred by people with income just a tiny fraction of ours. Only a minimum tax on very high incomes will prevent the stated tax rate from being eviscerated by these warriors for the wealthy.

Above all, we should not postpone these changes in the name of “reforming” the tax code. True, changes are badly needed. We need to get rid of arrangements like “carried interest” that enable income from labor to be magically converted into capital gains. And it’s sickening that a Cayman Islands mail drop can be central to tax maneuvering by wealthy individuals and corporations.

But the reform of such complexities should not promote delay in our correcting simple and expensive inequities. We can’t let those who want to protect the privileged get away with insisting that we do nothing until we can do everything.

We’re gearing up for a very important fight on fair taxation. I got an email from our OFA RFDs about The Action and signing up on a Google docs page. I don’t know if that was just for CA OFA volunteers so not sure if I should post the link here. Did everyone get a similar email?

I also got that email. Our California OFA is having a phone bank on Dec. 1st to call about the tax issue. It would be interesting to see if folks in other states are doing the same thing. I would encourage anyone who has not visited theaction.org website to do that. Also there is a form folks can fill out to keep informed on this issue.

I am hopeful that most of the folks who worked at OFA and maybe a few who missed it will stay involved. The pace will be much slower than the GOTV – but it will be very important. Republicans are counting on us to relax and go away. Not much chance of that……

WARREN BUFFETT TELLS GROVER NORQUIST: Here’s The Thing You Don’t Get About Business And Taxes

By Joe Weisenthal

—————-

Warren Buffett is out with a NYT op-ed calling for a minimum tax on the rich.

We’ll get to his specifics in a second, but the part that will get the most attention is his intro, where he calls out Grover Norquist, the powerful activist who gets Republicans to “pledge” that they’ll never raise taxes.

Buffett writes that what Norquist doesn’t get is that no businessman would ever turn down a good, profitable deal due to tax rates.

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.”

Would your reply possibly be this? “Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you’re saying we’re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.” Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination does such a response exist.

Leave it to the ace reporters in the mainstream media to miss the crucial issue about Grover Norquist’s stranglehold on the Republican Party. The focus should be on the “elected officials” in congress who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution and then take the no taxes pledge which essentially RELINQUISHES THEIR JUDGEMENT on taxes. Who elected Grover Norquist? This man wields too much power and his no taxes pledge is largely responsible for the gridlock and dysfunction in congress. Grover Norquist is a problem, but the bigger problem is the sheep in the Republican Party who allow him to hold them hostage because of primary challenges.

The Democrats should be focusing like a laser on the Grover Norquist no tax pledge issue and making sure the American people understand the implications of his demands. Every member of congress who signed the no tax pledge needs to be exposed. They should have to explain to their constituents why they relinquished their judgement to some guy outside of the government. The more the American people learn about the Grover Norquist no tax pledge the better. It just doesn’t pass the smell test.

LadyH, I whole heartily agree with your well written comment. However, in those red-states a majority of the constituents strongly supports their representative in taking the Grover pledge. We all at some point must acknowledge that there are a bunch of ignorant, nasty, racist, lying republican hypocrites that will always vote against their own best interest.

This best antidote for these zombies is “SHAME”. You can not have a rational conversation with these bastards. Thus, they must be SHAMED back into that rat infested purified sewer in which they crawl from. Whether you look at them when they open their filthy mouth with total disdain or verbally shame them both will work. What will not work is trying to have a rational conversation with them, that only emboldens them.

Ranman, the media is just an extension of the Repubs. If it’s a GOP talking point, they’ll push it. Fortunately, PBO is a millions times smarter than any of them and knows their number. He could care less what song the media is selling.

… the New York Daily News reports Peter King (R-NY) will be stepping down as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. (King, a Republican, is giving up the top spot under self-imposed Republican rules that limit members to serving no more than six years as a committee chairman. King already had a waiver to serve a seventh year, which he is now completing.)

Over here – me – probably the happiest person in TODville to hear this news. I CANNOT STAND Peter King, and he has no business being chairman of anything. Unless it’s his Neighborhood Watch, and then people would still have to watch HIM.

I have never like that Peter King. Then again I don’t know of to many Republicans that I do like. Today Republicans are a nasty bunch of S.O.Bs. I don’t want to feel that way, but they have shown us over and over again the last four years just what kind of nasty people they are.

If you recall, President Obama spoke to both Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon last week, while he was travelling, to discuss the fiscal cliff strategy. Very smart. These men hold significant sway in the money-making circles in this country.

i am so thankful for warren buffett’s strong and steady leadership on the issue of taxation. i’d love to see a meeting between him and bill gates, and congressional republicans spouting their robotic “trickle down economics” talking points, and watch two of the biggest self-made business success stories of all time destroy the trickle down lies once and for all. can you imagine lyin paul ryan trying to explain to warren buffet how business works?!? hilarious.

putting the good of your country and fellow citizens above your own immediate self gain could be a definition of patriotism. warren buffett is truly a great american patriot!

What a disgusting tweet from yesteryear. Oops. I see that Gorka guy was Robme’s former traveling press secretary. Guess his credit card was canx, too, on election night. His profile calls him a “Seinfeld freak.” I’d just leave off the Seinfeld part.

Oh, thanks for adding to my joy about these freaks, Chips! Hope they like the unemployment line … although, knowing MSNBC, he’ll probably be a paid consultant for them, soon.

There’s still a whole archive available of vicious newspaper articles and vicious, demeaning cartoons from President Lincoln’s day, where he was mocked for his Emancipation Proclamation on behalf of the “lazy black dudes” who helped build this country.

If only people like Dorka would have realized their written crap today about the “lazy black dude” in the White House never goes away, maybe they’d think twice.

Words can describe what a disgusting lowlife this Rick Gorka is. Just look whose schedule the voters interrupted. Hope he spends lots of time fruitlessly looking for a job and has to try food stamps for a while. I have no respect or patience for people like this.

Why is the public so prone to blame Republican members of the House and Senate?

Maybe they’ve been paying attention.

Indeed, 7 out of 10 say the GOP has not done enough to compromise with the president. They made stonewalling their strategy in 2009 and have basically not any made exceptions since — except when they were tricked into doing so. A vast majority of Republicans in Congress have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge that basically means they’re unwilling to compromise—though some senators have started to back away from that once-firm commitment.

Voters also agree with Democrats on the issues — 56 percent say taxes on the wealthy should be kept high. And even Republicans agree by an 8-percent margin that any deal should include tax increases along with spending cuts.

“77% believe that their personal financial situation will be affected if the government goes off the fiscal cliff,” said CNN polling director Keating Holland.

But isn’t that the same public which put the Rethugs in power in 2010 in droves? I really don’t understand why so many people vote for Rethugs after they wrecked the country between 2000 and 2008 under President Shrub.

There’s so much banking and international news flying in the news sphere. Toronto’s Mayor Robert Ford got kicked out of office by a Judge for conflict of interest regarding finance issues and kickbacks, Mary Schapiro is stepping down from the SEC come December 14, and Mark Carney the Governor of the Bank of Canada has just (in a shocking move) been picked to head the Bank of England next year. Why? Because Canada luckily escaped the worst of the 2008 financial meltdown and Carney tightened regulations on banks and got them to accept banking reform. Canada’s going to be pissed but England just picked up a huge scoop. It’s all very exciting to watch.

So no, Republicans like Lindsay Graham should not be able to demand Democrats accept his idea of “entitlement reform” (which means benefit cuts) in exchange for agreeing, vaguely, to insist on less than 100% repeal of the Bush tax cut expiration that is in current law. For one thing, if Republicans are going to claim Norquist’s iron grip on the GOP has been broken, they need to explicitly accept the possibility of tax rate increases on the wealthy, not just more revenues via “loophole closing.”

Let’s don’t forget Republicans put themselves in this position to begin with. Those who have been in Congress since 2000 deliberately created a fiscal crisis via tax cuts; lashed themselves to the mast of Norquist’s pledge; and have spent every other minute in front of partisan audiencies demanding much smaller government and entirely regressive taxes. A slight return to sanity is no grounds for celebration by Democrats—much less surrender.

President Obama on Monday praised the service of Mary Schapiro, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who plans to leave the agency next month, the New York Times reported.

“I want to express my deep gratitude to Mary Schapiro for her steadfast leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Obama said in a statement. “When Mary agreed to serve nearly four years ago, she was fully aware of the difficulties facing the SEC and our economy as a whole. But she accepted the challenge, and today, the SEC is stronger and our financial system is safer and better able to serve the American people – thanks in large part to Mary’s hard work.”

Obama also announced that he intends to designate a current SEC Commissioner, Elisse Walter, as Schapiro’s replacement.

“I’m confident that Elisse’s years of experience will serve her well in her new position, and I’m grateful she has agreed to help lead the agency,” Obama said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce shouts “JOBS” with two-story-tall block letters strung on its building facing the White House.

That might be the closest the business trade association gets to President Barack Obama’s talks on skirting the fiscal cliff, a $607 billion combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take effect in January.

The chamber, which spent at least $50 million on political advertising backing Republican candidates who opposed Obama, is a bystander in the debate over Washington’s most critical post- election issue. It is being supplanted by other business groups such as Fix the Debt and the Partnership for New York City.
.
.
“The chamber expects to have a seat at the table, but the table is set by people it just tried to politically kill,” Dennis Kelleher, president and chief executive officer of Better Markets, a New York-based nonprofit, said in an interview.

There’s so much exciting business news domestically and internationally today. It’s all making me giddy.

Thanks for the article LadyHawke. The chamber of commerce wants a seat at the table now after being a thorn in Pres. Obama’s, Democrats and the middle-class’s side for the past 3-4 years? They really must be smoking something. They spent lots of money trying crush the same people they want to give them an ear now and expect to be respected or even seriously listened to? Hahahahaha.

Fox Interview Ends After Guest Accuses Network Of Operating As ‘Wing Of The Republican Party’

——————————-

A Fox News interview about the Benghazi attacks ended Monday morning after the guest openly accused the network of “hyping” the story — doing so with political motivations by acting as “a wing of the Republican Party.”

Author Tom Ricks was brought on Happening Now to discuss how several GOP lawmakers are backing off their criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice‘s handling of the September terror attacks that left four Americans dead in Libya.

Asked why lawmakers like Sen. John McCain seem to be backing off Rice a bit lately, Ricks replied: “I think Benghazi was generally hyped by this network especially. And now that the campaign is over, I think he is backing off a little bit. They aren’t going to stop Susan Rice from being Secretary of State.”

It’s surprising how much of the FOX and McCain nonsense is taken for granted, even though President Obama hasn’t nominated Susan Rice or anybody to be Secretary of State, and her involvement in the “handling of the September terror attacks…” was basically a 2 minute spot on a Sunday talk show. The right wing and their media weave a universe of lies, and then inhabit it like it’s based on facts and truth. And then every reaction after that is from the faulty perspective of this false universe.

All these hours of Benghazi talk have not focused on the reckless video that caused a global reaction and jeopardized the lives of embassy staff around the world, providing cover for a terrorist attack in the first place. They have not mentioned the right wingers rumoured to have funded the video. They haven’t talked about the actual terrorists who actually killed those Americans – and what their motivation was and whether embassy staff are now safe. They haven’t talked about the ongoing investigation, the bureaucracy failure that prevented a third extension of security, or the fact that GOP members of the foreign relations committees demonstrated to the world that they are willing to throw the country’s national security out the window if it affords them a chance to humiliate the President or any of his Administration (especially the black ones). It’s such a waste of time and energy.

If you ever wonder why few democrats go on the Sunday talk shows – this is it – all the media wants is a chance to attack the President & the democrats. John McCain has been lying on the the Sunday shows for 4 years – yet when he does his about turn – never a word is heard from the media about how unfit he is for the office he holds.

They never discuss how much damage he’s done to the country, either. Just imagine what the world has been thinking while watching his witch hunt against Ambassador Rice, and how much credibility she might have lost with his false accounts and statements that she’s “not that bright”. Just imagine if she becomes Sec of State whether the world will look at the top diplomat of the United States with the same respect that they should when her own country men have completely disrespected and insulted her? and then also imagine what the world thinks of the US Congress, that they can do such a thing, and put party over country on the world stage like this – right after the Mitt Romney fiasco.

Theo – how very true – the media in my world quotes GOP hacks – both politicians and pundits ALL the time – my rather pathetic effort is to send off emails whenever I see such reports/interviewers asking that they stop giving such people a platform – and I get a “thank you for your input” as a reply. Sigh.

In addition to the Buffett Op-Ed piece about raising taxes on the wealthy, Steve Rattner (whom I often don’t agree with on all things finance, fiscal, and budgetary) has a very good Op-Ed in the NYT too about raising taxes on the wealthy. It is well worth a look.

Almost lost in the tug of war over whether the top income tax rate should be 35 percent or 39.6 percent is another consequential tax issue: the proper rate for capital gains and dividends.

It was the absurdly low rate on those forms of income — just 15 percent — that yielded Mitt Romney’s embarrassingly small tax payments. And that’s what also led to Warren E. Buffett’s lament that his tax rate was lower than his secretary’s. President Obama has proposed much of the needed adjustment, including eliminating the special treatment of dividends and raising the tax on capital gains to 20 percent for the rich.

Personally, I would go further and raise the capital gains rate to 28 percent, right where it was during the strong recovery of Bill Clinton’s first term, and grab hold of a total of $300 billion of new revenues over the next decade. Inevitably, a chorus of outrage would greet any such increase. Capital investment would be severely impaired! Some of the wealthy might decamp from America! With a new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income about to take effect, this would exacerbate the disincentives for investment!

Put me down as skeptical about such dire forecasts. During my 30 years on Wall Street, taxes on “unearned income” have bounced up and down with regularity, and I’ve never detected any change in the appetite for hard work and accumulating wealth on the part of myself or any of my fellow capitalists. Increased revenues, meaning higher taxes, will be a central element of any successful long-term budget plan, and President Obama is right to insist that the wealthy — the slice of America that has come through the recession in by far the best financial health — should provide those funds.

I am so glad that this Journo, Thomas Ricks called Fox out. Too bad, as a friend of Howard Kurtz, he was on CNN’s Reliable Source…..Mr. Ricks should advise his friend, Kurtz to stop carrying water for Fox. Kurtz a media critic, goes out of his way to trash MSNBC, but would kiss Fox’s a*s, repeatedly.

For Fox to change…..For the profession of Journalism to begin to regain it’s integrity and some trust from the public, the Journalists would have to Own their profession and call out those like Fox who bast_ardized their profession.

He hurry up and got Mr. Ricks off the air didn’t he? Fox is a pile of stinking dog doo. John McCain and Little Lying Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment to the U.S. Senate. It is ashame that the President has to have term limits, but weasels like McCain and Graham can hang around for forever, well pass their time.

You people – you people! – are highly excellent with this 140 characters business. I’m like that old saying, ‘sorry the letter’s so long, I hadn’t time to write a short one’ (or something like that). I need at least 1,400 characters to get my point across :???:

Which is why I seldom write letters. People would just complain that I made it too long, but I wouldn’t have time to look it over and do a comprehensive job of editing. If I tried to tweet, the last word would always be chopped in two and the result would make no sense.

‘ A new Florida law that contributed to long voter lines and caused some to abandon voting altogether was intentionally designed by Florida GOP staff and consultants to inhibit Democratic voters, former GOP officials and current GOP consultants have told The Palm Beach Post.

Republican leaders said in proposing the law that it was meant to save money and fight voter fraud. But a former GOP chairman and former Gov. Charlie Crist, both of whom have been ousted from the party, now say that fraud concerns were advanced only as subterfuge for the law’s main purpose: GOP victory. ‘

‘Imagine Michelle Obama cradling a raccoon in her buff arms. Grace Coolidge’s pet raccoon, Rebecca, was a celebrated resident of the White House, dragged out for Easter egg rolls and held like a cat while the First Lady posed for the camera. ‘

‘ AS TENS of thousands of politicians, diplomats, NGO-workers and journalists descend on Doha for the two-week feeding frenzy known as the UN’s annual climate-change summit, the latest report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shows that matters climatic are going from bad to worse. Greenhouse-gas emissions are now about 50 gigatonnes of carbon equivalent (GtCO2e). That is 20% higher than they were in 2000 and, worryingly, 11% higher than where emissions need to be in 2020 in order to ensure global temperatures do not rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (see light red range in chart). ‘

Having read his comments on THE SLOG website, I don’t think Trump is referring to African Americans — just Latino Americans and Asian Americans. If the Rethugs are smart, they’ll pass immigration reform asap, although President Obama will be the one to sign any such bill.

Great tweets Bob! I am sorry I am hopeless when it comes to posting links. But President Obama’s popular votes’ lead has gone up as result of added votes from NY and NJ. David Wasserman is currently showing PBO’s popular vote to be 64,727,450 (50.84%) and Mitt Romney’s is at 60,416,651 (47.46%). The President’s vote margin over Romney is currently 4,312,799.

I used the link and now it says Romney down to 47,47% !! Let’s appreciate this number for a while, but it will still go down a bit in the next few days. I want the number to be at least BELOW 47,45 %, so NO “math challenged” pundit will be able to round it up to 47,5% and then to 48%.

I think you are right, Bob. I just don’t see Romney getting more than that. I understand that there are still votes expected out of NY and NJ., which I am sure will end up favoring the President. There may also be provisional votes being verified in other states like CA that are still to be added. Only about a dozen states (mostly small states, many won by Romney) have certified their numbers. I will not be surprised if the President’s margin of victory hits 5 million as AMK predicted.

“… it’s worth reiterating that there is a set of actual facts about GOP filibustering and the Dem response to it that shouldn’t get lost in all the false equivalence BS we’re certain to hear:

2) The nature of GOP filibustering is unprecedented. Ornstein says this is true in two ways: First, in the extensive blockading of what used to be considered routine Senate business. And second, much of the filibustering is part of a concerted party strategy. “You’re not just looking at filibusters done by rogue senators or factions, like southern Democrats in the 1950s,” says Ornstein. “It’s the first time we’ve had a wide range of filibustering by a whole party.”

At any rate, now that Reid has made such a vocal push, it’s hard to imagine that Dems won’t move forward on day one of the new session to change the rules with a simple majority vote. Looks like it’s on.”

No false equivalence BS on filibuster reform. There is a set of actual facts that must not get obscured: http://t.co/gKBu9Xu9

Was that what that radio broadcast thing was about? My oh My what a mess. I can’t seem to excape the l’affaire Shoq without unfollowing about 15 people who I really admire on twitter. They all have commentary on it. ABL (Angry Black Lady) is even tangled up in this mess.

It has really become sickening. The egos are out of control. Enough already! I wish they would move on as well but it doesn’t seem to be letting up one bit. I unfollowed one of them but that doesn’t help because so many people on my timeline are talking about it that you still end up seeing this mess. I am completely fed up with it. I’m sorry this happened to them but It’s not my business and I really don’t care to know about any of this stuff.

ACK. When I first joined twitter, he the one who kept showing up in my timeline. So I followed him and he seemed to have something interesting to add to the discussion of politics. But I had to unfollow him a few weeks back. It just got to be too, too weird. I don’t want to know about any of that stuff. And I really, really don’t understand how this kind of thing can happen between two people who have never met. PSYCH.

I stopped following Shoq a long time ago. Recently had to stop following one of the other players, who I respect ordinarily, but who has recently started tweeting a lot of bizarre stuff that seemed vulgar and kind of bi-polar. I don’t care for soap operas and my time is more valuable than to read people who have lost it.

It’s just really sad Tien Le, lots of good people wasting their energy and time on this stuff. I don’t know the truth about it all, or even a fraction of the facts, and obviously people got hurt, it would just be great if they could let it go and devote their energies to other stuff.

Drama is a waste of everyone’s time. There are real live important things going on in the world. Hope you don’t spend any more time investigating this. It is simply not worth it. Go hang out with Bo, or book a flight to D.C. in January…goose Snark Knoller…infinitely better investments of your talents and compassion.

Hay Fox, I hope you didn’t choke on your lies. Thank you Tom Ricks. I loved it when he asked how many Security contractors died in Iraq? And Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party. Thank you Mr. Ricks.